BRW Top 50 Sports Earners for 2014: Australian talent, mostly US and Indian money

The Australian cricket side could now field a full team of millionaires with the sport's top players dominating the ranks of the BRW Top 50 Sports Earners list for 2014. Thirteen cricketers have placed on the list, led by all-rounder Shane Watson ($4.5 million), fast bowler Mitchell Johnston ($4.1 million) and Test captain Michael Clarke ($4 million).

The list is based on earnings in the 2014 calendar year, and totals salaries/prizemoney plus commercial endorsements. The year's schedule allowed many of the Australian cricket team to play a full season of the lucrative Indian Premier League. Salaries there for several Australians, including Watson, Johnston and hard-hitting opening batsman David Warner, topped the $US1 million ($1.3 million) mark.

Veteran fast bowler Brett Lee, who announced his retirement in January after completing the Big Bash League season with the Sydney Sixers, also makes the list with $1.5 million. The majority of Lee's income is from a long list of sponsors, including four Indian sponsors. Lee is a global ambassador for Castrol India and a brand ambassador for chicken company Venky's (India)

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Total earnings for the top 50 earners reaches $164 million, up from the $158 million recorded in 2013. There are two women on the list, led by surfing world champion Stephanie Gilmore ($1.75 million). The other female athlete to make the list is golfer Karrie Webb ($1.28 million), though tennis players Samantha Stosur and Sally Fitzgibbon just miss the list.

The majority of Australia's biggest-earning athletes make their money overseas, with a stronger US dollar helping boost the bank balances of the 17 on the list that earn their money from competing in the US or the global circuits where prizemoney is measured in US dollars.

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The first seven athletes on the list earned their income in the US, led by the highest-paid Australian sportsperson in basketballer Andrew Bogut. The seven-foot centre plays for the Golden State Warriors in the United States' National Basketball Association and tops the list for the fourth consecutive year, but only just.

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He earned $16.2 million in 2014, almost all of which was derived from his Warriors contract. Bogut, who turned 30 last November, is in the second year of a three-year contract extension with the Warriors that will pay him a minimum of $US36 million over that time, plus incentives. He is one of many players likely to cash in as the NBA significantly raises its salary cap per team in future years after the league signed a nine-year $US24 billion broadcast deal extension with US firms ABC, TNT and ESPN that will begin in 2016.

"Andrew is likely to get a good deal for next contract, maybe at the $US20 million level over a couple of years with each year at the $8-10 million mark," his manager, Bruce Kaider of the One Management Group, says. Kaider says younger players are likely to receive bigger contracts in future years.

In second place is golfer Adam Scott at $15.5 million, who cashed in off the course thanks to his iconic win at the 2013 US Masters. About two-thirds of Scott's earnings are made from large global sponsorship deals with the likes of Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo, Rolex and Mercedes-Benz.

Another golfer, Jason Day, places third on the list with $10.65 million earnings. Day, the fourth ranked golfer in the world, has several top 10 finishes in major events and has high hopes of breaking through for his first big victory in 2015.

Motor racing driver Marcos Ambrose earned $5.68 million in prizemoney in his last year on the Nascar circuit in the US in 2014, though drivers there usually only directly receive a percentage of money won.

Football star Tim Cahill rounds out the top five at $5.5 million, primarily from his 2014 wages at US Major League Soccer club New York Red Bulls. Cahill recently signed a new contract with Chinese club Shanghai Shenhua after leading the Socceroos attack in the team's 2015 Asian Cup win.